and if the darkness takes you
by The Lady Avaritia
Summary: I want to take me too. There's so much you want to tell him, so much bile you want to get out of the way, words that you have weaved and toyed with.


**Title: and if the darkness takes you**

**Rating: **T  
**Spoilers: **general

**Characters**: Thor, Loki

**Summary: I want to take me too. There's so much you want to tell him, so much bile you want to get out of the way, words that you have weaved and toyed with**

**Disclaimer: **disclaimed

**Author Note:**

**Author: **_Lady Avaritia_

You stand in front of each other, all kinds of silent, and you look each other in the eyes, and there's nothing you really can say to each other, because everything of consequence has been said way too many times before, and you have no idea what to bring that will change things.

Thor is all kinds of golden and beautiful, muscular, tall, with his silk hair, threads spun of pure gold and piercing eyes like the tallest glacier-tops of Jotunheim, your homeland. Something in you hurts, just a little.

There's so much you want to tell him, so much bile you want to get out of the way, words that you have weaved and toyed with, like _I love you, I hate you, I don't care, I'm sorry, take me back, please don't worry, I'm fine, tell mother I love her…_

You want to be angry with him, for being beautiful and magnificent and godly. You want to hate him for being a daft fool who never once looked back to make sure you were following.

Instead, you twist your lips in a bitter smile, and you just-so restrain yourself from laughing, because if you laugh it will come out hysterical, you just know it. You save yourself in your smile, that ugly twist of the lips. Odin hates it so, so much, you remember. You used to smile in front of him always, just to spite him, whenever he told you that you weren't quite good enough, that you should be more like Thor and less yourself, and you smiled at him, not a hint of humility in you, and you'd say _"Yes, Father."_ like you meant it.

It's the same smile now, that is your only defense, and you're not quite sure what to do.

_Idiot_, you want to say, _moron, how dare you_?

You are angry. Not the _I-want-to-punch-a-wall_ angry, you're the _I-would-hulk-out-if-I-could-and-then-kill-people_ angry, like, _what have you done, I hate you, come back, bring me back, idiot, idiot, idiot, I don't care, I don't need you…_

And damn, aren't you a good liar, Loki?

You are choking on what you want to say, can practically feel the words clogging up the inside of your throat, filling up the bronchi, the bronchioles, and finally, your alveoli, preventing oxygen from spreading through your cursed bloodstream, and oh, All-Father, you could've said so much.

The laugh makes its way out of your throat, bubbles up, claws through your mouth, beats through your teeth, and touches the polluted city air, like, I won.

But you didn't, and you think that if you weren't laughing you might start crying. The sound comes out destructive, all encompassing, making it hard to breathe bringing tears to your eyes, as you clutch your middle, and Thor just stands there, like, he can't see you even though you're right in front of him, and his blue eyes look at you like you're some sort of beautiful twisted angel, and oh, this is just so funny!

And next thing, you're aware of being blasted into a wall and the Iron Man lands and you can hear the roar of the green vegetable, and the red-headed mewling quim is there with the spandexoid and the Wilhelm Hauf wannabe in toe, and you would laugh even harder, if not for the fact that the wind has been knocked out of you.

You walk out of the hole in the well, brush debris from your expensive suit and fluidly morph into amour, clutching the scepter until your knuckles turn even whiter than they are.

You keep your head high, and your eyes steeled and cold, freezing even, you would make a Jotun cover with snow dead in his tracks with those eyes. Twisting your lips in a smile is a conscious, forceful act, but you do it and you feel like your smile has been carved into your cheeks, like that fictional character, how did they call him again? The Joker?

Midgardians, if nothing else, have a mildly interesting culture.

'Loki,' the Iron Man growls at you.

'Avengers,' you say with a jovial tilt of your head, and spread your arms, like an emperor showing of his court.

'Did you do that?' the Robin Hood of the new era demands.

Did you? What's more, would they believe you? Should you even try? But no.

So you bare your teeth in a feral grin.

'Did I?' you ask, 'What do you think?'

What they think breaks five of your ribs, and they snap right back in place as soon as you wrench out of the Hulk's grasp, and get yourself a safe distance away. Away from them, away from Thor's empty accusing glare.

They attack, blindly, furiously, desperately, with each blow, _it's your fault, it's your fault_, and you reply in fashion, matching them strike for strike, _what did you expect, what do you want, can you see now how bad I am?_

The words you want to say, the things you would've loved to tell them, they all swim in front of your eyes.

Somewhere in the course of the battle _how dare you_ has turned into a mantra of _I'm sorry,_ but you're not, you've never been, and you're certainly not starting now. The laughter tinted with an edge of madness rises again, like bubbles in a champagne glass.

The liesmith, Loki Silvertongue, God of Mischief-turned-God of Evil, oh, you're so bad.

With an animalistic snarl you send that… creature, the Hulk flying off of the top of the building, and hear the satisfying crunch of its mortal body against the asphalt, while you force your mind on Hawkeye. He aims, and gets the Widow down, and you smile your ugly smile, when you see that the Iron Man's amour is damaged from being subjected to energy from the scepter one too many times.

The archer shakes his head, trying to comprehend what he's done and the boy-next-door- in ridiculous spandex is trying to asses the situation.

You read it in his eyes. Retreat.

'You can have the body,' you say spitefully. 'Though I hardly think that matters you, do you?'

The Iron Man studies you carefully, his mask down.

You look just as you did before they came to intrude upon your last private moment, upon your silent grief and your crippled mourning. A tailored suit in black and green, your long hair falling round your pallid face, and your smile strained at the edges.

You look like you're falling apart.

'You didn't do it, did you?' he asks finally. You offer him another grotesque of a smile; you give them out like free candy today.

You tilt your head to the side, bird like.

'Did I?' your attempt at mockery falls flat, 'What do you think?' you raise a think black eyebrow.

_I'm sorry_ has become _I love you_, but it doesn't matter. It's a lifeline, if you've ever had one. It's a lifeline you've lost.

You don't wait for a reply, because, frankly, you do not expect one, and it doesn't matter anyway. You twist yourself. Force one last farewell smile and disappear on the spot, and you wish, silently, fervently, that you could say all that has never been said.

That very same night, in a bar, in the lonely dark, way past last call, and desperation hour, you toast to your not-brother in Valhalla, and you wonder, vindictively, pettily, meanly, if your not-father is hurting nearly as much as you are, before deciding you don't really give a flying fuck if he is.


End file.
